Ogun reinstates students suspended for smoking "shisha'

.... insists no private schools must take in expelled student

The Ogun State government has reinstated two students of Abeokuta Girls' Grammar Schools, Onikolobo, found smoking "shisha" in uniform outside the school sometimes in November last year

A video showing the students smoking shisha had gone viral sometimes in November 2021 after which the state government identified the students and promptly suspended them.

The state Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Professor Abayomi Arigbagbu, however disclosed yesterday that the girls were allowed to returned to classes after they had under gone series of counselling.

Arigbagbu noted that the learners were put under manual labour as a form of punishment in the school to serve as deterent to others.

The commissioner posited that all the measures put in place would helped to reduce minimally misdemeanor in schools, while also advising the learners to shun behaviors that would bring shame to their family, school and the state.

He revealed that no private schools in the state would be allowed to admit such learners expelled from government schools.

The state government also made it  known its plan to debar any learners without 70 per cent  attendance from writing any form of examination in its schools.

Arigbabu said the move would helped tremendously to curb absenteeism in schools.

“Absenteeism of learners in schools is worrisome to us as government, this we believe is also part of the behavior that we frowned at. We have therefore ensured digitalisation of names of our all learners, this will make it impossible for anyone that does not record 70% attendance to sit for any examination”, he warned 

The Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Mrs. Abosede Ogunleye charged the learners to face their studies and shun acts that would undermined or destroyed their future.

Ogunleye said the erring learners have been rehabilitated accordingly, advised others to not stigmatized or abused them, but to draw them closer and continue to advised them, saying, “the learners have been counseled and made to undergo some punishment and I want to believe they have change for the better. So I want to encourage you not to abuse, stigmatize or call them name, instead advise them and be their friends”, she submitted 

Responding, the Principal of the senior school, Mrs. Tolulope Fasanya, appreciated government for rehabilitating and re-integrating the girls back to school, promising that such incident would not happened again in the school.